*Edit* I don't believe in taking away guns, but just controlling distribution.
I believe that you should have background checks and such. This would be good in bringing better security to the U.S.
It would?
Do you know how many firearm homicides are committed by repeat offenders?
Most.
Background checks are in place at all legal firearm distributors. People with felonies to their name (such as shooting people, vandalizing a mailbox, or failing to pay child support) cannot purchase firearms legally.
If most of those crimes are repeat-offenses... and they are still getting a hold of firearms... making background checks tighter isn't the solution, as the existing criteria already prevent distribution to those most likely to cause crime (prior offenders).
Which means that you'll only strengthen the illegal firearms trades with more strict federal regulation.
I believe in self protection, but come on!
If you believe that the government must control people for our own safety, then you do not believe self-protection to be a valid concept. Obviously, if you thought self-protection was functional and valid, you would not believe it necessary for the government to arbitrarily attempt to restrict weapon ownership.
Sorry on the outburst earlier, I said, "fck the 2nd ammendment" But I meant to say, people use it to justify having guns without license and other unlawful things. And sometimes people loose it and use their guns for bad, as this has been shown if many cases.
And?
The consequence of having the freedom to purchase a car and drive it where you want is that someone may freely drive their vehicle into yours.
It's not the government's responsibility to protect you. Protectionist legislation is, inherently, a removing of rights from the population it claims to serve. Sometimes, those things are warranted (not everyone needs to be able to go out and buy C4, for example) - but for the most part - you have to accept that rights come with consequences.
They say that death is not in the hands of the gun, but in the hands of the man who holds the gun... but the gun is still used to kill right?
So are alcohol and cars.
You don't need a ****ing P90 for a home invasion..
Irrelevant.
What matters is whether or not I am going to behave responsibly with the weapon. Most firearm related death in this country is 'caused by' handguns. It's not that the handguns hold more than 7 rounds in the magazine. It's that the handgun was on the person, they got angry, and shot the other. Of these - very few are committed by the person the firearm is registered to (in other words - it was stolen and transferred illegally), and even fewer are committed by concealed carry permit holders.
The people who buy firearms legally are the ones who tend to cause the least amount of problems - regardless of what they purchase (although rifles account for less than 5% of the national homicide rate).
There are an estimated number of firearms in this nation equal to its population - with arms proliferation being between 50 and 80% - depending upon the methods of the study. That means that every day, in the U.S. - an estimated 175 million - 280 million firearm owners don't cause a problem. The less than 10,000 who do each year (about 30 per day) don't even begin to represent a meaningful portion of the population.
Call me crazy - but I'd rather deal with the improbability that someone is going to choose to use their firearm against me than the certainty that, 25 years down the line, "tougher background checks" get manipulated by government agencies (given free reign over regulatory criteria without a public vote) and are preventing the population from being armed while more than 50% of the population directly on federal government pay-roll.
Edit: included specific mention of firearm-related death.
